Pixels and my Prince

Candy Tree

2007-03-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

Ok serious sweet tooth warning here! This thing is loaded with yummy stuff. I took Hershey's Kissables, M&M minis, & Skittles all in the snack size packs and made this fabulous Easter candy tree For Thomas for Easter. He is going to get this instead of a basket this year. I also wired in a bunch of hot-wheels cars into the tree. On the bottom filling the flower pot is bite size 3 musketeers bars and a set of easter Thomas the train die-casts as well as some other small toys. It only took about 3 hours to make and it was so much fun. That included making the bows and ribbons.

OK so here is a tiny sneak peek of the Next NDISB Mega scrap kit. There is much much more. It is so fabulous.

The Big 30

2007-02-28T11:21:00.000-08:00

I had been looking forward to turning 30 for a little while. Ready to venture into the next stage of life. If you asked me at 18 what I would be like and doing at 30 things would be vastly different than they are now. It's funny how time, wisdom and Life in general changes your view on things and rearranges your priorities. I am at peace with myself finally for the 1st time in years. I have forgiven myself of past mistakes and am ready to embrace life as a whole. It's funny how not so long ago 30 was old, but now I feel like I am just beginning.

And as if I didn't need a sign that all is well in life, this is what I saw yesterday out my kitchen window. I had to go grab my camera and run and snap a couple pictures.

Thomas still has an awful cough, but he finished his antibiotics, and his fever and wheezing are gone, so evidently he is getting better. Thanks you all so much for your well wishes.

Thomas is sick...

2007-02-24T08:40:00.000-08:00

Ever have one of those days where you simply could not agree with a Doctor's diagnosis of something? It's frustrating and makes you angry. Thomas Is one very sick little boy. Friday morning he had a fever and a cough. By noon it was getting pretty bad. I took a listen to his lungs and they were clear, so I told hubby not to worry to much, it just a cold and gave him some Tylenol for the fever, and then tried to make an appointment for Thomas to be seen at the ped's office. No such luck getting him in. They only had one appointment in the urgent clinic available, and it was during my class. I had a 3 hour class I had to go to to maintain my License for the Care Home I run. Got to love those required CEU's in the medical field.
Class is boring as expected, but Gerald calls me and said Thomas is having a hard time breathing. I asked him how hard is hard. Does this warrant a 911 call? He said no not that bad, he just sounds stuffy, but to come home as soon as I could. So I get home and Thomas is passed out sound asleep on the couch. He looked so sweet. I checked him over and noticed, yeah his breathing was stuffy and a little labored, but still not enough to be too worried about. It looked the norm for a kid with a cold. So I let him sleep and started cooking dinner. I tried to wake him up to eat, and of course he didn't want to eat. That too is nothing new. Thomas doesn't eat much when he doesn't feel well. So he fell right back asleep on the couch. I was watching him as I was cleaning up the kitchen and I noticed his breathing was getting pretty labored. Enough to catch my attention and send alarms off in my head. And it takes a lot medically to make me panic or take pause, because I have literally seen it all. So I start counting his respiration's and the panic sets in. 52 resp's a minute, wow that's not good. so I go and get my pulse-ox and put it on his finger. 83 Wow that's not good either. Thomas is still fast asleep but I notice he is wheezing. Now It's time to go to the ER.
So we get to the ER, and they take him back right away, and I fill out the paperwork. They do O2 tests, and X-rays, and look him over, and do the whole thing. A nurse came in and gave him a albuterol and atrovent breathing treatment in a nebulizer as well as prednisone & epi. TJ's O2 sats are much better after the treatment and stay right around 95-96, So it obviously helped. About 1 hours later the doctor waltzes back in with an official diagnoses of Pneomonia and Asthma. Now I listened to Tj's lungs and they were clear. No crackling sounds at all, and the X-ray tech even said they were clear. We had to wait in Xray while they were developed to see if they needed to be retaken. Because TJ was basically hyperventilating and it made it hard to get the Xray. He asked me if I could put on a lead apron and go in there with him and calm him down. I said yes, but he isn't panicked he has been like that all night and that is why we are here in the ER. So the Xrays were a bit blurry, but he said they were OK, and his lungs were clear. So if the Xray shows the lungs are clear and his lungs sound clear when listening to them, how do you get a diagnosis of Pneumonia??? TJ was doing much better and it was late so I took him home. The more I though about it though, the more I simmered and got mad.
I myself have asthma. Asthma is not an issue that you diagnose when a kid is sick. Yes a cold, croup, pneumonia, bronchitis etc can all bring up asthma-like symptoms. Like wheezing and airway constriction, but you never make an asthma diagnosis when A child is sick. You make it when they are perfectly healthy and are having wheezing episodes. You also have to do lung compasity breathing tests, So that just made me mad.
So here we are on Saturday Morning and things are better. Thomas Obviously had something wrong with him. The Zithromax and prednisone he has been taking for 2 days is working. Zithro is a broad spectrum antibiotic thou?? so who knows what exactly. We have been doing his albuterol with an aero-chamber. It is a spacer with a face mask that you spray the inhaler into. It takes both Gerald and it to do it. One has to hold him down while the other puts the mask on him and pushes the spray into it. I feel like a complete heel doing it. Because basically you hold it on his face and all but suffocated the poor kid. He screams out and cries, and holds his breath until he just can't anymore, and with tears streaking down his face he finally will breath in. Oh and he has to do this for 6 breaths. Now the mommy side of me feels absolutely terrible for doing this. I feel like I am torturing my baby. I hate seeing that something I am forcing him to do is making him so sad and afraid. And then there is the medical side of me that A: knows he needs this medicine, and B: thinks " hey crying is good, the louder he screams, the harder he breathes, and better he takes the medicine into his lungs"...I know terrible mommy am I.

February Newsletter Sneak Peek

2007-02-20T10:41:00.000-08:00

Well at last I am finished putting together another great newsletter for the store. We have some fun stuff this month.
If you are not registered to get the NDISB.com ND*zine newsletter I suggest running and doing so. It will be headed toward the email in-box shortly.

Getting the newsletter is the only way to get this fab kit for free.

Pretty Petals and Firestones

2007-02-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

Can I just say. I really enjoyed creating these flowers! they were so much fun. with that I bring to you. New embellishments are in the NDISB store.

11 slightly worn, beautiful and vibrant flowers. Flowers have a wonderful woven silk flower texture with slightly frayed edges. It also comes with 13 beautiful fire gemstones to add a bit of bling to your pages. Use the Gemstones to tack down your flowers on your page. If bling isn't your thing, go with the included brad tack in a variety of metal finishes. You also get a beautiful metal mounting ring, so you can have your Fire Stones with or without the metal rim. These flowers are sure to add that special finishing touch to any page. They even look fantastic stacked with 2 different colors.

So for my loyal Blog readers....The 1st 5 people to buy the elements can get it for HALF OFF!! Use the coupon code Blog-PPFS-50percent to get it for a whopping $1.50! Coupn only good for the 1st 5 buyers, so be quick!

Surgery is scheduled!

2007-01-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

Well Lets start off with the Krispy Kreme doughnut bread pudding I made this weekend. YUMMY! a bit on the swwet side, but I tweaked the recipie to be not too sweet. It was so GOOD!.

Surgery..... Gerald goes in this Wednesday Jan 10th for his surgeries. We have to check in on the surgical floor at 11 am so I am guessing his surgery will be around 1 or so. He will be in the hospital a few days and then gets to come home and rest. The doc said he will be very sore for about 6-8 weeks. He is ready to get it over and get to feeling better, but he is so disappointed the weather forecast is for snow here Wednesday & Thursday and he loves snow. It hardly snows here. The last time it snowed real real good we were also in the hospital LOL. I was having Thomas. Go figure. Thomas and I are going to stay with some close friends who live very close to the hospital. I am happy for that because driving and hour through the snow to get there is not my idea of fun. With the snow it would take twice as long.

We had a blast this past Friday at Gerald company Employee appreciation party. They hold it at the Marriott Waterfront. They went with the Casino Theme again this year since everyone had so much fun last year. We had a really yummy dinner there. Fillet Mingon, asparagus, Garlic potatoes, and an asian salad. Then we watched the annual video slide show presentation and then off to gamble with our funny money. They give you a $1000 in play money to buy chips. At the end of the night you cash the chips in to buy raffle tickets for the door prizes, which were amazing. Tivo's Ipods, Nintendo DS, Diamond jewelry, Gift cards, Flat panel TV's, All expense trip to Vegas, and the list goes on and on. So I settled in to play some 3 card poker. It's really fun. I placed 3 $25 bets out on the table and ended up with a full house which paid me back $3,500. I struck it real good on that hand LOL. We had fun and cashed out with 30 raffle tickets, and ended up winning a goodie bad filled with some country CD's for Gerald and then we won a $50 visa gift card to the local mall for me! I was happy. We headed upstairs to the hotel rooms for the after party. We are not big party animals, but there is something about the company party that makes for a great time. Hey anytime the police show up and tell you to keep it down more than once is a good time.

Thomas turned 3 Saturday. He stayed the night with friends on Friday and we picked him up Saturday and all of us went out to breakfast and then shopping. Thomas made himself a birthday bear at build a bear workshop. It is so cute. Then we all just hung out, got some dinner and we headed home. It was real low key, but Thomas had fun. We decided to wait until after Gerald's surgery to do a party, and even then I think we are just going to have people over for a BBQ and whatnot.

The amazing DigiScrap race has been fun so far. Here are my two projects for the week.

Life.....

2006-12-28T09:25:00.000-08:00

Oh where to start. Lets go with the good first. I picked up the mail last night on our way in from seeing the Neuro-surgeon (more on that later) and was too tired to look through it so I set it on the kitchen counter and went about my buisiness. This morning I look through it. Bills, junk mail, late Christmas cards, etc. But for some reason one of the Christmas cards really stood out. OSBN, Oregon State Board of Nursing was the return address. Now I have no clue why I'd get a Christmas card from them. Turns out, to protect my privacy, and legal issues, they forwarded/mailed a card to me from someone else. Almost 2 weeks ago I had some friends up from out of town. We did some sight seeing and then went out to dinner together. On our way home from dinner we were on the interstate, and saw a really bad accident happen right in front of us. It involved a car rolling several times and landing upside down in the grass median. I stopped immediately and ran to the car. Gerald stayed at our car with Thomas and called 911. Another car stopped at the same time and parked by my car he was an RN who just got off duty at a nearby hospital. He went to the drivers side and I went over to the passengers side. The car was on it's roof in the mud and it was very smashed. Mostly on the passengers side. I dropped down and started to crawl into the car thru the broken window. It was a young boy I was guessing 17-20 years old and he was badly pinned in the car. He was not wearing a seatbelt and since he was upside down in the car he was basically folded in half and smashed down with his full body weight on his neck. He was making gurgling and gasping noises. It stuck me that he couldn't breath, because his windpipe was pinched because of the position he was in. Normally I'd not move a person in this type of predictament, but then I started hearing that voice in the back of my head from all my training that said "the brain starts dying after 2 minutes". So I had to do something. I started to pull on his shoulders, and push his his to try and turn or roll him just enough so that he could breath. I knew from how bad the car was that it would be awhile before they could get them out. They would have to cut the car open. I just stayed with him and asked how he was doing, Was he hurt anywhere. Anything to keep him talking to me. The fire trucks finally got there and took over. It's an amazing "tag your it" changing of the guard. They took over on helping and figuring out the best way to get these kids out of the car. No police on scene yet. I didn't need nor did I want to hang around at this point. I was soaked wet, muddy and the adrenalin was wearing off and I was starting to get cold. So I approached one of the fire crew over at the truck that wasn't actively working on the scene and gave him my Name, drivers license number as well as my Oregon State Board of Nursing ID number. In case anyone had any medical questions down the road. Like say I hurt him more by moving him. So I got home, showered and got cleaned up and warm. So that was my eventful night.

Fast forward to today. The card was from his family. He got to go home from the hospital Saturday the 23rd. Just in time for Christmas. The Doctors and emergency staff told the family that I had saved his life. By my decision to move him it greatly improved his odds for the best recovery possible. He had a serious concussion which is what kept him in the hospital and a broken arm, rib, and clavical, as well as bruises and scrapes, but all heal well. The family said I'm their Christmas blessing and thanked me so much.

So I spent the morning crying over my coffee and rehashed the whole situation in my mind. All the what-if's. Then that turned into Wow that could be Thomas in a few years, then to anger a bit. I got angry at this kid for now wearing his seatbelt. I'm very glad he is OK, I'd been kind of wondering how he was doing.

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Whats next....Neuro-Surgeon

We spent all day at the hospital last Thursday getting Gerald's Myleogram and CT done. We were there from 7:30 am till almost 4 pm. What a long day I'll tell you. Anyway the doctor called and wanted to see us right away. That's never a good thing right! So we both met at the hospital and went up to see the doctor. He went over the films from the Myleogram and CT with us, and they weren't great. Gerald has some major nerves on 2 different levels and sides being pinched and effected in his neck. Dr Wayson talked to us about the 2 different ways to do the surgery. When we asked which was best he said it is a toss up. If you were 20, no doubt we would opperate from the back, to maintain the range of motion. If you were 60, no doubt we would operate from the front and do 2 fusions, as you aren't going to be around as long, and aren't as active. So with Gerald right smack in the middle, there are a lot of personal and lifestyle issues to factor in. Operating and doing the fusions is a much faster and less painful recovery. Generally 2 weeks and you are back to light duty at work. It is done orthoscopically and is minimally invasive. Going in thru the back requires cutting thru all the muscle in the neck and drilling in thru the vertebrae to widen the nerve channel, which also posses a substanial risk. As the doctor is kind of flying blind so to speak. There are nerves on the back side of the bone, that as he said don't really like being drilled on. He said they really don't like it when they wrap around a drill bit and twist around at 5000 RPM. A joke yes, but a very real scenario. So when it was all said and done Gerald opted for the surgery through the back. He will be out of working and recovering for about 8 weeks. It really takes that long for the all the cut up muscle to heal well. We are going to do the surgery 1st thing when Dr Wayson gets back from a trip he has planned. No date yet, but his assistant is going to get it all approved with the insurance and scheduled for mid January. They are doing a right side Cervical decompression & foraminotomy on the C-5, and a Left and Right side Cervical decompression & foraminotomy on the C-6.

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Only a few more days for the Celebrate Good Times Mega Kit HERE. Through December 31, pick up this mega kit for free with any $6.00 purchase. Just make sure you have the mega kit and your purchase in the cart and enter the following coupon code at checkout!

ndisb-8yn-7bg6x3

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I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that Santa was good to everyone!

Have yourself a "Funky Retro Holiday"

2006-11-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

Well I have officially done it. My very first solo kit it done and in the store for sale. YAY. Now I just sit back (scared to death nobody will buy it LOL) and wait. Anyway Here is a peek at it.

Use this code FunkyRetro-BlogGift and it will save you 25% off the price of the kit. It's good for the 1st 25 people people. You can pick up the kit Here at NDISB.com

In other news. Thomas & I took the day off yesterday. We went out to luncg and to go see Happy Feet the movie. Thomas Loves it and was pretty good for the whole movie.

First dentist visit & Blog winner!

2006-11-28T08:36:00.000-08:00

OK OK sorry I didn't post this last night. I got sidetracked watching deal or no deal and Hero's. For my little shopping spree challange the winner is....drum roll please.....Amanda. She guessed $427. My actual amount spent on all those goodies was $478.89, I saved a heap shopping the Black Friday sales!

Well Thomas went to the dentist Saturday for his very first dental check-up. He was so cute. No cavities! That is always a good thing. I was just a quick look over and a get aquainted type of thing. He will go back in 6 months for teeth X-rays and a more complete check up.

Kit by Kim Christensen, Rad Collection. Template by Gina Miller. Tooth element by Theresa Hernandez in her Fairy tooth kit.

The price is right!

2006-11-24T15:55:00.000-08:00

Wow I am one tired mama, but am to amped on caffine to sleep. I finally got myself to bed just before midnight last night. Oh T-day dinner was so yummy. So anyway I set my alarm clock and went to bed. I got up at 3:30 this morning to go shopping of course! I left Thomas home for the 1st leg of the serious do or die, sleep deprived, crazy people shopping and then picked him up at 9:30 to go out for lunch and more leisure shopping. So here is what I bought. (I'll itemize it all below to make it all easier)

Here is the game! You get to guess the dollar amount I spent. Post a little message in the comments section with your guess. I'll leave it open for guesses through the weekend/Sunday night. Who ever is closest to the actual dollar & penny amount will get my new upcoming kit "Funky Retro Holiday" which I hope to have in the store the 1st part of the week, for free as well as some other goodies and your choice of a Gift Certificate to Shabby Princess, Jen Wilson, or Gina Miller. Happy guessing and please please leave a way for me to know who is who. Anon posts come up as that anon, and I have no way of contacing people thru blogger so leave an encrypted email like mine is mystical_morningATmsnDOTcom. That way I can know who is who and how to send them their goodies. OK here is the itemized list of the goodies I bought.

* one Maxtor 300 Gig external hard drive
*2 toddler stage board games (cooties and ice)
*1 20-pack of hotwheels cars
*3 5-packs of hotwheels cars
*3 hotwheels motorcycles
* one portable DVD player
* Portable DVD player case
*5 packs of double sided matte paper (50 sheets per pack)
*2 boxes of hershey pot of gold candies
*2 small stuffed toys (woody and buzz) from the disney store
*one craftsman flexible drill/screwdriver shaft
*stocking stuffer pack of play dough
*a 1Gig flash/jump drive
* one Dale Jr beanie hat
* 2 diecast car playsets (one resuce and one construction)
* one tonka dumptruck
* one dancing princess barbie
*one jumbo tin of mixed popcorn
*one 6x6 scrapbook with 2 sets on page refills
* bath & body works wallflowers (2 units and 4 boxes of refills)
*three (yes three) 12 inch Bikes

and a run down of misc clothes bought
* 4 pairs of toddler pajamas
* 1 south pole shirt
* 2 4 pack of mens boxer briefs
* one men's belt
* toddler fleece pullover
* toddler pullover sweater
* one toddler T-shirt
* two 10-packs of socks (one toddler & one ladies)

and one thing no pictured because Thomas was real good and I let him pick it for himself and he took it to bed. One Disney store talking tractor toy from the movie cars.

Happy guessing and I hope every one had a wonderful and safe holiday. Hugs

Surgery and a cute layout.

2006-11-17T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well I went with Gerald yesterday to see his Neuro-Surgeon. Good and bad news, but much better than we were thinking. We've tried everything from cortisone shots into the disks (ouch), physical therapy, seeing a physiatrist, Taking every combination of painkiller and anti-inflamitory known to man and Gerald continues to get worse, not better. I was wanting straight forward answers about the surgical procedure, how long, length of recovery etc, and he couldn't give us the details. I can understand why, because at this point all the Dr knows from the MRI's is there is buldging and problems, but doesn't know how many nerves are involved. So he needs to get another Mylogram. He had one over a year ago on his low back, It is done as outpatient in the day surgery section. They are going to inject him with radio-reactive dye, and then tip the bed up at a 45 degree angle so it runs to his head and neck. They will then do a PET/CT scan. The radio reactive dye makes it so they can see which nerves are having troubles and which ones are ok. From there the Dr says we come straight back upstairs to his office to look over the results. As he will have them in his office withing minutes after the procedure. Oh the miracle of digital Imaging. Gerald last MRI was digital, and TJ's chest X-ray when he was 1 and got Pneumonia was digital. The hospital is very high tech. So after the mylogram we will know which way the Dr will operate on Gerald neck. If only the nerves around one disk are involved they will operate from the back of the neck. They will remove the disk. Widen the canals in the vertebrae with a specialized drill, and then insert a piece of "bone" where they get bone or faux bone from I don't know. I didn't ask. I will next appointment. The bone is a spacer essentially where the disk was. Over time it will heal itself to the upper and lower vertabrae around it and fuse the whole section together. Now if more than one set of nerves is having issues because of the disks they will not operate from the back. The reasoning is they have to remove the disk to get to the nerves/nerve canal which means multiple fusions and that means severe loss of mobility in the head and neck. Dr said think Frankenstein here. So in that case they operate from the front of the neck. Operating from the front is a lot more dangerous and has a lot more risks, but on the upside because they are going in from the front they don't have to remove the disks and fuse them and such so the healing and recooperation time is much shorter. He will come home in a soft cervical collar. and depending on pain tolerance can even go back to work part time and on light duty about 2-3 weeks after the surgery. In this procedure they carefully slice open the front of the neck and through the muscles in the neck, peel them all away to get to the bone, and then drill out the nerve canals much wider. The discs will still be angry and swollen in his neck, but there shouldn't be the pain and all the numbness in his arms from the pinched nerves since they will have more room with the canals drilled bigger. They stitch everything up and done. Like I said the recovery is really quick compared to the other. We were just so afraid that he was going to have a long and painful recovery from a surgery that didn't really work like in Gerald's lower back. He had 2 surgeries there about 10 years ago and the last surgery when the disk ruptured he was laid up for 6 months. The Dr said they have better technology and procedures now, and also back surgeries always lake longer to heal because the back is in your core, you use it and abuse it even when you don't mean to. So naturally it just takes longer. if they operate from the back it can still be 8-12 weeks before he is feeling better because the bone has to heal and he will be in a lot more pain. So for the time being we are waiting for his insurance to approve the Mylogram which could take up to 2 weeks, and then we can schedule the Mylogram with radiology, which is usually about 2 weeks behind. So we are guessing that mid December he will get his Mylogram and then we can get the specifics and make a plan about the surgery, which again requires approval from the insurance (2 weeks there) before the surgery can be scheduled. I'll keep everyone updated.

With all that said here is a cute LO of TJ's second bithday. I was having such a hard time with his birthday photos because I just didn't feel inspired to scrap them. Until I saw this adorable template from Nina. It was given away at this weeks birthday chat for Tania at NDISB. I altered the temp a bit, but this is the finished product. Papers are by Michelle Coleman at Scrap Artist.

Cars, Apres Ski, and the Flu!

2006-11-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

Well I am finally over having the flu, YUK. Been sick pretty much since Halloween. I am happy to announce that Toy Story is no longer in heavy rotation at the house. It has instead been replaced by Cars the movie. It takes atot to endure that movie over and over and over.

Well the new NDISB newsletter goes out today. I'm proud of myself for meeting deadline even with being sick, and then last night dealing with all the Keely stuff I still managed to meet deadline. I am working on a new and exciting format for the newsletter. Prolly to be released with the January issue. New year new newsletter!

Anyway this is the monthly collab kit for November called Apres Ski Lodge. It is so pretty I love all the cozy Pastels. You can get it at the NDISB.com store as soon as the newsletter hits.

and here is a layout I did using the kit and one of Nina's templates for the November sketch challenge.

Keely Simpson and NDISB

2006-10-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

Last week, some information regarding Keely Simpson was brought to our attention. This information warranted further investigation. In the meantime, pending the outcome of this investigation, we determined it to be in the best interest of NDISB customers, and NDISB, to discontinue carrying Keely’s products.

We have attempted to reach Keely directly to verify the validity of this information with no success. As yet, we have not been able to confirm or deny the information. We are continuing to pursue verification and validation.

There were two raffles that were being coordinated by Keely in support of the fundraisers. We know a number of people purchased the Scraps4Shane products as part of these raffles. For a number of reasons, we need to cancel these raffles. Please contact Theresa@ndisb.com if you have any questions specifically regarding these raffles.

If you have any questions regarding this situation, please do not hesitate to contact me at Theresa@ndisb.com.

This is our public statement at the time, but please take faith that much is being done behind the scenes and has been for days now!

Here's to you Mrs. Robinson

2006-10-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

Now why would anyone start their blog post with that as a tiltle. Probably because as I was out running errands with Thomas I saw me a little eye candy. I was backing out of my parking space at Fred Meyer's, and there I saw it. LOL there were 5 young men, And I do mean young. These were High school students. They looked like the huys in the Ambercrombie posters in the windows at the mall OK. I guess that fool ball practice must have just let out becasue they were wearing nothing but their tight football pants. No shirt, nadda. Oh and can I mention that yes they were chisled. So anyway I was all like "Hello hotstuff" in my head of course as I drove by and turned my head. LOL. Now that is something so cliche that a guy wopuld do. I don't know what came over me, but they were Hot! Now I'm not quite old enough to be their mother, but deffinately too old lol. So anyway there's my juicytid-bit for the day.

Grey's Anatomy: Was fantastic! I feel so bad for Izzy. She just stood in front of the hospital all day. And the previews for next week are good. Leaves you wondering if Meredith is preggers. HMMMMM

Next order of buissiness Keelys Charity kits. Keely is in the Hospital with Shane. He isn't doing well. He tok a turn for the worst and had to have another surgery. He had a bad infection and fever, so they had to open him up and put drain tubes in. I feel so heart broken for her right now. She's asked me, Anita, and Theresa to take over the project and get it in the store. I stayed up till nearly 2 am this morning designing papers and elements. I am so tired this morning. There are still so many gaps in the boy and girl kit, as so many designers did not follow thru with their peices they signed up for. So if your a designer and you are reading this and have the inclination to help. Email me ...PLEASE. The kit is set to go out on the 11th and we can't do it all. I'm making some progress on my own kits, but not much. I have this HUGE to do scrap list that seems to be getting bigger not smaller. I have a million projects 1/2 done but never seem to get there lol. I'm a slacker what can I say....NOT.

If you have not signed up for the NDISB.com newsletter I highly suggest you do it NOW. The october customer loyalty kit is beyond fantastic. It is truely some of the best work I have seen from the designers. It is stunning, & beautiful. I am very excited about the upcoming October isue of the newsletter. Well beside me getting to make this months. YAY ME. There aresome awesome contests coming up. with prizes rangeing from gift certificates to a wacom tablet! How cool is that.

I got Tagged!

2006-09-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

By Anita,
So here are the rules to play blogtag:
List 5 weird things about yourself or your pets.
Tag 5 friends and list them.
Those people need to write on their blogs about 5 weird things, and state the rules, and tag 5 more people.

Don't forget to let the people you tag know by posting a comment on their blog!
here are my 5 weird things ::

I'm addicted to trashy novels. If it is a Nicole Jordan book or a Linda Howard one, you can likely bet I've read it.

I am OCD about my ears. I use Q-tips like ten times a day and clean them out.

I am also OCD about dryer lint. If someone does laundry and doesn't pull out the dryer lint I freak out.

I get my big toes waxed everytime I get e pedicure. Each of my big toes has a couple hairs and I think they are gross and they drive me bonkers.

I collect Barbies. I love them, and that is kinda odd for someone my age lol.

5 people that i'm tagging ::
Gina Miller
Dani Mogstead
Kim Christensen
Keely Simpson
Shabby Princess

Facelift's & Elmo's

2006-09-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

Well I gave my blog a facelift. While I adore Jen Wilson, I was getting a bit tired of staring at her snow fairy kit lol. So here we are newly decorated and with 3 columns! Yay. Anyway Thomas went out yesterday and rode his 1st horse. I wasn't able to make it, but I was told by him all day long how he rode a horse and how cool it was. Well we started yesterday on next months Collab kit at NDISB and I can say you are all in for a huge treat. It is going to be awesome, and so not the typical fall or harvest/seasonal kit that floods the market this time of year.

On another note I promised myself weeks ago that when this stupid new elmo came out, that we wern't going to get it. Thomas already has way more toys than he needs and many he doesn't even play with. While he adores Elmo and watches elmo practically daily, I didn't think he needed one since he already had a build-a-bear workshop Elmo. WRONG.... Oh how wrong could I be. He has seen this think on commercials and on the news and on talkshows Etc. He is in love with the thing. He cracks up and starts yelling "Elmo laugh". He wants one bad. So I figure We will cave and buy him one. OMG the thing just came out yesterday and all the shelves are empty around here. Then I read Gina's blog and she says it is the same in her area. So what does a girl do???? She calls her Brother in law who is the Store Manager for Target down in California. He assured me that they are getting a new truckload of Elmo tonight and he will personally grab one for me tonight and put it in the mail to us tommorrow. It's not what you know but who you know. lol. So with that dilema fixed the only thing to ponder now is give it to him when it gets here or hide it in the closet and give it to him from the man in the big red suit at Christmas???

Happy Monday

2006-09-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

Well It was an eventful weekend or week I should say. It started out inncently enough with wanting to put down new vinyl flooring in the back bathroom, and rip out the carpet in on of the bedrooms and vinyl it too. As luck would have it both floors had rot in them. So can in the fix-it crew. After much banging, hammering, & cursing, I finally had 2 nice solid floors that the vinyl guy could come do the vinyl. Oh did I mention we were also having concrete poured outside too lol. It was complete choas. As my stinkin luck would have it there was wall damage to the wall with the guys trying to get the floor out. They patched and spankled it and got it all nice and smooth, but it looked aweful of course so now I was stuck repainting both rooms. I was so pooped. Saturday entailed me stacking an entire dumptruck of firewood lol. But yesterday was mine. My 1st day off in what felt like forever. I got my paycheck saturday and looked at my time sheet. OMG I only got one day off in the entire pay period. from the 1st thru the 15th I only took one day off (and it was actually a half day) because I had to go to court as a witness. No wonder I am so beat down and tired. That alone without all the extra work and construction will do it. So anyway Gerald and I headed out yesterday morning bright and early with Thomas. 1st stop was IHOP for breakfast. Now I am officially glad fall is coming. I was able to get pumpkin pancakes...YUMMY! I love them. So then we headed out to Suavie Island to go do the corn maze. We do it every year and it's a blast. We didi the maze and then Thomas rode on the cow train. He was such a cutie. I was a bit sad. I guess we went to early in the season as the hayrides out to the pumpkin patch were not up and running yet. They don't start till next weekend. I told G it was a bit early to buy pumkins anyway. So we bought some produce at the farmers market there and headed back toward Portland. Cars the movie was still playing and we thought we would take Thomas to go see it again. He just loves anything to do with Cars. We went out to McMenamins at the old Kennedy School. I had never been to any of the McMenamins before and it was so cool. They bought an old closed down elementary school and renovated it. It has like 5 restraunts and bars in it. One of them being the courtyard restraunt. It is all outdoors in a beautiful garden. Some of the old classrooms have even been converted to hotel like rooms. You can stay there. Best of all is the theater. The old school auditorium has been converted to a theater. Now this isn't your ordinary theater. It was full of comfy overstuffed couches and coffee tables. You could bring whatever you bought at the restraunts or bars over to the theater and eat there. It was so laid back and family oriented. I loved it. Can't beat the price either $3 for adults and $1 for kids. It cost all three of us $7 to get in the movie. I had serious sticker shock becasue we normally pay $8.75 per person to go to a movie lol. I am so in love with McMenamins. All the walls were painted with art and murals. It really was fantastic.

OK so I have a little something special brewing on the backburner. You will all be pleasantly surprised. I've been asked to design for a digital store and I finally conceeded and said YES! I have been putting it off and saying no and making excuses to myself. But it is time to do it. I will shortly be releasing 5 whole kits. Can you believe that. I'll be sharing previews as I finish them up here. I'm even going to let you guys name them lol.

OK the ladies at NDISB have really outdone theirselves this month. Look at this fantastic kit. Play All Day is Septembers Customer appreciation kit. Newsletter subscribers can get it free with any $3 purchase at NDISB. So make sure you sign up for the monthly newsletter.

The Uber long catch up post

2006-09-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

I promised a real post soon so here it is. This is going to be long. We had a blast at the Nascar races. I missed the heck out of Thomas. I always do, but it is also very nice to get away without the kiddo too. Our anuual family reunion Camping trip went great. Gerald and I got to meet Aaron's new gir. She was very preggo on the camping trip. She actually had the baby just they other day. A little girl 7 1/2 pounds and 19 1/2 inches. Hmmnnn last I blogged we were just ordering a new car. Well if you can believe it, It finally got delivered, with 3 miles. I way a little PO'ed cuz I wanted to take a picture of the speedometer reading "zero" I said how does a new car get 3 miles on it. I guess from loading and unloading it on and off of rail cars, freight trucks etc. It also has a scratch on the door...more like a gouge, becasue a scratch can buff out. My brand new car is going to the body shop on Monday to get fixed. Can you believe that. Delivered with scratches. Gerald said had it been a regular customer and not a Dodge employee they would never had known about it, because the body shop would have had it fixed, before the customer was even called to pick up their car, but being as Gerald works there and he is the one that oversees all the new cars coming in and coordinates the deliveries, kinda hard to keep him away from his new car. Specially when we were told 6-8 weeks when we ordered it.

Got a 2007 Dodge Caliber, and it came in and all was finalized yesterday Kit is Teresa Hernandez Endless summer kit. All the stuff is stuff I scanner in like the window sticker and my keys and stock tag etc. Check out the arrow. It says "this car built specially for Monica McLain" that rocks!

OK NDISB is having a HUGE sale from Sunday the 3rd thru Monday the 4th. It is Judys Labor day sale ( Celebrating Theresa's Birthday) Happy Birthday Theresa! and everything is a whopping 43% off! Also with any $15 purchase you also get to stick this little beauty in your shopping bag and use the code NDISBLaborday2006 to get it FREE!

And here are some LO's from the camping trip. All are using the fab new kit from NDISB called "Campfire Stories" and is currently the customer appreciation kit and is FREE with any purchase. So what are you waiting for. Run & Go get it!.

Journaling reads: "Thomas found his way to the keg. I wonder where he learned about drinking out of the hose from! Monkey see monkey do...right! All Thomas said was “I drinkDaddy’s beer juice.”

Alpha by Dani MogsteadJournaling reads: "It’s no wonder Steve calls Steph and I Havoc and Fury “The Chaos Twins”! We always Seem to find some sort of prank or make a little trouble every single time we get together. This time It was sneaking off the the bathroom and getting toilet paper from the park bathrooms. Then while the guys were all out playing frisbee golf we TP’ed Daves tent. Then later in the trip Steve booby trapped Dave’s tent with water ballons and zip ties! Poor Dave!"
This last layout feauture's templates by Keely Simpson. She is one of the benefctors of the Guardian Peas kit that I helped design for a few months back. Her 2 year old son Shane has cancer, and they will be basically living in the hospital for the next several months. Now you all know that after the Baby Allie deal I am very pro-active with children's cancer. It breaks my heart everytime I hear of someone with a sick child. So Keely has decided to take a pro-active stance and is selling her templates HERE at NDISB.com. She is also heading up another major kit (well 3 actually), all of which will help offset the cost of Shane's medical care. I am proud to say I will also be a part of this. Keely if your reading this I love you girl and you are one of the strongest women I know! Chin up and prayers are with you. I also urge you all to go to my Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night website and give. Every dollar helps in such a big way. YOU CAN DONATE HERE It really is a worthy cause, and it makes you feel good too.

I promise in the next several days to update more!

Campfire stories

2006-08-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

The August Customer Appreciation kit from Natural Designs in Scrapbooking is now available! With any store purchase you can get this incredible mega kit for FREE! All the NDISB designers worked very hard to give you a versatile collection that will be not only perfect for outdoors or camping layouts, but for a large variety of other themes as well. Check out the NDISB newsletter (in your inbox or on the site homepage) for the coupon code!

I promise a real personal update soon!

T minus 8 hours

2006-06-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Well I am officially all done packing, with the exception of getting the last minute stuff together for the dog. Thomas and the dog are going to stay with close friends and Gerald and I are headed to California baby. I so can use a vacation. It is supposed to be 102 degrees on Saturday. Nothing but sunshine. Even with the packing done. I have been up since 5 am running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I need to finish the invitations for my friends baby shower and get them in the mail before I leave. I just finished organizing and zipping my contribution to the Guardian Peas Mega kit to benifit a couple a Pea-kids with Cancer (Keely if your reading this Huggs sweetie and I hope today is a better day. I'll be thinking bout you alot while I'm gone). Last minute wrote an article for NDISB July newsletter and got my contribution to the July Mega-kit zipped and loaded to their FTP. Now I gotta clean house and get things all in order for the new girl who is handleing thing here at the house while I'm gone. Someones gotta take care of the old folks. Here is a cute pic of the invites.

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OK so we have this little vacation ritual....The painting of the cars. Here is ours. When I get back I'll share pics of my Sisters, brothers, and Tony's. I'll even share pictures of my parents RV. All 6 of us kids are going to sneak over to the Racetrack Campground where they are parked in the middle of the night and graffi-fy their RV :) You know Window marker drawings on all the windows, toilet paper, shaving cream. Nothing permanant or damaging, but just good old fashioned juvenille fun. My dad has a great sense of humor......my mom on the other hand....we'll just leave it at that. So anyway here is our painted car. Which BTW this is going to be the last big trip we take in this car. sniffle sniffle cry cry (yeah right) The new one will be here toward the end of July. We even got a paper the other day from the dealer saying what our VIN number is, which means they have started building it YAY! See you all next week! TTFN

2006-06-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well The next few days I'm going to be busy packing and all the lasy minute stuff befor the big trip. I so can;t wait to get to california. It's going to be nice to just relax. So I wont be around to much for the next week. See you soon and miss me OK! Here is a new upload for the beachy alphas as a lot of people are still asking for them. You can still leave a donation for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Light the night walk here. For those of you voicing concerns about them only taking Credit cards, and still want to donate. Email me at mystical_morning AT msn DOT com. We will work something out :)

YOUSENDIT LINK

Enjoy!

If you downloaded my Beachy Alpha's

2006-06-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

This post is for you lol. It has been brought to my attention that somehow the letter Y never made it into the zip file. So just for you guys here it is.

Download fro Sendspace
Yousend it Link #1
Yousend it Link #2 for when link one runs out I am so sorry for being an airhead. Also I'd love to see the LO's you all are doing with it. So leave a comment with the LO gallery link or email me. Thanks

newsletter help

2006-06-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

Too tired to blog tonight. We have been going non-stop having fun out and about for 14 hours. Went to the grand floral parade, to see Cars the movie, and then to the waterfront festival/carnival. I'll tell you all about it tommorrow. As for at the comments about how to get/sign up for the NDSIB newsletter. Go Here to the www.NDISB.com store. In the top left hand side click the part that says "log in" fill out the for to register for the store. At the very bottom click/check the box that says recieve newsletter. When the newsletter releases you will get an email with a link to veiw the newsletter online. In that same newsletter will come a coupon code for the summer call kit. When you use the coupon, you get it free. The coupons are usually good for 1-2 weeks. Without the coupon code the kit is full price. Hope this helps you all :) Night night.

Crying,crying and you guessed it more crying!

2006-06-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

It's just one of those days. My hormones must be out of whack. I was cleaning house this morning and had the radio on. I swear about every third country music song had me crying either that or it was sappy pull on your hearstrings hour. So I gave up on that and put on of my rock mix CD's in. No way is bouling for soup, greenday, fountains of Wayne going to make me cry. Got that all done, made some lunch and sat down to match up socks while I watched trash TV aka Soaps. All was fine until I popped onto the computer to check my email. I got a donation notice from Active.com which is who hosts the online fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphona Society. I thought to myself YAY someone pledged a couple bucks for my Beachy Alpha. When I looked It was $25. OMG and I looked further And it was Theresa and her wonderful Hubby Ernie (hi green ogre). I instantly started crying because she is the sweetest person in the world, as is her hubby. She is already helping me get a Charity Digital scrap kit together to benefit the LLS in memory of Allie, and she is letting me host it on her site/store. Plus her friendship alone means alot. I never would have remotely expected that after all she is already doing in a million years. So there is crying episode #2. Then right before dinner Thomas was struggling trying to get one of his Cars from up off the kitchen counter. I asked him if he wanted Mommy to come help him. He said " NO, I don't need mommy..I'm a big boy" OH stab me in the heart my baby doesn't NEED me anymore. Welcome sobbing and tearing again! We'll see if he needs mommy tommorrow when he "Needs a cookie" and can't get to them he he he. Funny how toddlers never want anything, they NEED it. His latest is right now. The other night he said " I NEED juice" and paused for a second..."RIGHT NOW" as he smiled. I couldn't help but laugh cuz it was so cute. Big mistake because now his manners, please and thank-you's have gone out the window. Eerything is followed by right now! Well I am off to bed. We have an early and long day tommorrow. Getting up at 6 to head out and meet up with My buddy Tina and her family to go to the grand floral parade at the rose festival. I duct-taped our little claim on the side walk for us wednesday. Then we are taking the boys to go see Cars the movie YAY. and then heading over to the rose festival to pig out on carnival food and let the boys play on the kiddie rides.

Also If you could say a little prayer for my Pea-friend Keely It would be much appreciated. She has been in the hospital with her 2 year old son. Every parents worst nightmare. He got diagnosed with Cancer this morning. You can read her blog HERE.

Shopping, leathal Lemonade, and a freebie!

2006-06-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

Well today was an interesting day. I had Donna come watch the house today and Thomas and I headed out for a bit of shopping and to me Gerald for lunch. Is't stop Red Robin burger joint. I ordered me a chili chili Cheesburger and a peach lemonade. OMG I so need to pay better attention to menus in the future. The peach lemonade was totally yummy but about 1/2 way thru it I started to feel a bit funny. I looked at the menu. OMG it was an alchoholic drink lemonade lol. So here it is just noon and I have copped me a pretty good buzz lol since I hadn't eaten anything so far today. Well the burger came and was yummy. Thank god that most of my shopping was in the same strip mall as the burger joint lol. So anyway I headed over to the Avenue and picked up some more jean Capris and a couple tops for the trip to California in 2 weeks. I also hit Craft warehouse so that I could pick up supplies. My buddy Tina is having a baby girl and I need to get her shower invites in the mail. I got some cute pink cardstock and a neato pregnant stamp and some ribbon. Oh and Primaflowers and brads. Can you say cute. Can't wait to finish them and show you all. Hit target to pick up the Cars Movie soundtrack. I adore rascall flates, brad paisley, and cheryl crow so this was a must have CD. It rocks! Anyway Cindy Has an awesome new kit called Strawberry Kiwi coming out soon. I'll try to get a LO with it posted later tonight or tommorrow. Man the CT at NDISB has been rocking the last few days. I am so proud of them all, but boy do they keep me busy. I think I am going to have to make a spread sheet to keep up with them! So I made this embroidered alpha a while back and thought I'd post it here for my blog-buddies. For now just a Sendspace link. When You send it is back up I'll load it there too. You know the rules. You take it...You leave a comment :)

Download from Sendspace here